Saturday, February 23, 2013

The Rider and the Elephant

On one of my classes, I found something interesting that is worth blogging. There was a research study call the The Moral Foundation Theory. This is a theory that shows how the people's intuition is more influential in decision-making rather than reasoning.

The theory used the illustration of an elephant and its rider. The elephant represents the intuition. Intuition is defined as the actions that people do without any use of rational thinking. It is our personality, "gut" feeling and emotions. The rider on the other hand represents the reasoning. Reasoning takes place when an individual use logical explanations for things in decision-making.

Western culture propagate individualism, while Eastern cultures practice collectivism. Men are believed to be more rational than women. The Moral Foundation Theory have the answers for these things. It seems like men are programmed to be more rational while women are big on emotions. Eastern cultures are big on using their intuition, while Westerners mostly side with reasoning.

When we use our intuition over our reasoning capabilities, we are more vulnerable for being taken advantage of. We tend to only use reasoning when we try to justify our feelings. Look at America, and look at all the other cultures who thrive in this country, it seems like they are bound to justify each others fault when truly their enemies are just themselves alone.